


Shadows in the Dark

by narcissablaxk



Category: Scott & Bailey
Genre: Canon Divergent, F/F, Rachel x Gill, Series 4
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:14:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22468456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narcissablaxk/pseuds/narcissablaxk
Summary: Gill stumbles upon Rachel after a fight and helps clean her up, starting a series of new events of Series 4.
Relationships: Rachel Bailey/Gill Murray
Comments: 17
Kudos: 63





	1. Chapter 1

Rachel was used to feeling anger when it came to her mother. She resigned herself to the uncomfortable surge of adrenaline that coursed through her every time someone mentioned her, every time her name appeared in her phone, every time her mother’s voice rumbled over the phone line. Sean hadn’t helped that, the naïve idiot. He had welcomed the storm back into her life, and when Rachel had gotten him out of hers, he hadn’t taken Sharon with him. 

It was an oversight, that’s true, but Rachel saw it as simply his business. He brought the trash in, he needed to take it back out. If she didn’t think he’d use it as a way to worm back into her life, she’d call him and tell him so.

But she didn’t.

She wanted to love her mother; desperately she wanted to love her. She wanted what Sammy had with Gill, she wanted what Janet had with her mum. She wanted…something with her. Not having a good mother fucked her up, she knew that. She was old enough that she accepted it. But that didn’t stop her from wanting it to be different. 

She felt that even more keenly when she was practically yelling at her mother at the front of the syndicate, trying to put money in her hand to bribe her into leaving. It was a cheap shot, but one she thought would work. Who needed money more than her booze-guzzling mother? But it was the wrong move, and her mum was sneering at her, and the look shot deep into her bones, anger and hurt and shame. 

She even managed to disappoint her mother. 

She shoved her way back through the doors, back to where her mother couldn’t get to her, and retreated immediately to the loo. It was easier to exist in here, where her male colleagues couldn’t see her, frustrated and flushed, tears pricking the corner of her eyes even while she wondered why they were there. 

She didn’t care what her mother thought of her, she told herself, pushing gently at the corners of her eyes to keep her mascara from running. She really didn’t, but sometimes she wished she didn’t feel so shameful.

She heaved a breath in through her mouth, rough and ugly and unladylike, and straightened up. She didn’t have the time to be worrying about this; she had a case to work. 

***

There was a folder on her desk when she got back, labeled Rufus Wilton. She groaned. She’d forgotten that she’d asked for someone to pull his file when her mother told her who she was marrying. Her own mother had chased it from her mind. She didn’t want it now, didn’t want any other reason to think of her mother, of her stupid almost-husband, of their skuzzy life they were going to lead together. 

Still, she flipped it open. A mean, ugly face was looking back at her. Rufus Wilton had a rap sheet, that much she was aware of. He had just been arrested for possession. But what she didn’t know, but knew now, as her finger ran down his priors, was that he’d been arrested for assault, domestic violence, against his previous wife. He was a wife beater. 

It was late in the afternoon – Janet was in the interview room, Gill was watching the interview, the others were out working. She was, aside from Pete, alone in the bullpen, staring at the wall, her mind running a million miles a minute. 

What to do now, she thought? She just bought her freedom from her mother, with that measly quid she shoved into her hands, and it wasn’t her business, wasn’t it? Not anymore. She didn’t need any more messy men in her life, anyway.

Still, she pulled her hair back into a low ponytail and grabbed her leather jacket, her hands shaking. 

***

Rufus Wilton answered the door in a sweat-stained shirt and a pair of boxers. Rachel couldn’t keep the sneer of disgust from her face as his own eyes raked down her form. He didn’t know who she was, couldn’t know that this was his fiancée’s daughter, but still, his reaction was inappropriate. 

“Rufus Wilton?” she asked. 

“Who’s askin’?” he asked, his voice gravelly and heavy with booze and the smell of cigarettes and marijuana washed over her with his voice.

“Are you Rufus Wilton?” she repeated, trying to school her voice into something sweeter. She thought it didn’t work – her voice was shrill and false but Rufus smiled at her and nodded, stepping aside so she could come in. 

“Yeah, I am. What brings a sweet bird like yaself into me flat?” she bristled, her shoulders tightening, and turned to face him, her eyes taking in the shitty sitting room, the stained couches, one sagging in the middle so much she was sure it was broken, the joint on the table, the cans of beer littered on the floor. With a jolt, she remembered her own childhood home, before her mother left – the stain on the couch where her mother had vomited after a bad night drinking, the overflowing ash tray, the chipped lighter. 

“You’re marrying Sharon?” she asked. 

“Yeah,” he said simply, and she swung her fist into his jaw before she could talk herself out of it. He staggered backward, but didn’t go down, her hand rising to touch the place she’d hit. She felt the pain radiate through her hand, the familiar ache she was used to, after getting in enough scrapes through the years. 

“What the fuck?” he shouted, his voice still ragged. “What’s your problem?” 

She didn’t answer, but swung a second time, this time for his kidneys, and this time he went down, falling gracelessly onto the couch. He was shouting something, screaming so loud surely his neighbors could hear, but all Rachel heard was the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears, her breathing loud and distracting.

She stepped back, waiting for him to get back up again, but instead of rising upright, he lunged off the couch at her, catching her around the middle and slamming her into the wall. Pain ricocheted through her back and her ribs, and she shoved at him with her hands, her fingers finding no purchase until she brought up her knee and knocked the wind out of him. 

He let her go, stumbling back a step before clumsily swinging for her face. He caught her in the jaw, much like she had in her first hit, but he was winded and the blow glanced off her mouth. It didn’t hurt until she moved her jaw, and then she felt the blood in her mouth. 

“You mad bitch,” he was saying over and over again. “You’re a fuckin’ mad bitch.” 

“Yeah, I am a mad bitch,” she said, and she could feel the blood on her chin now, the pain in her ribs radiating out to her whole torso. She kicked at him, her foot catching him between his legs, and watched him finally drop, a satisfied slump in her shoulders. 

“That’s for all the women you put in hospital,” she spat, and left him on the floor, next to his pile of beer cans. 

It wasn’t until she was a few steps from her car that Rachel felt the full pain in her face, in her ribs. She gently maneuvered herself into the driver’s seat of the car, too scared to look at the damage Rufus might have left on her face. Her knuckles were bleeding freely, probably from snagging on his belt when she hit him in the kidneys, but if her knuckles were any indication, she definitely didn’t want to see her face. 

A quick push on her phone told her that, as usual, her phone battery was dead. She leaned back in the driver’s seat and gave herself one moment before she started the car and pulled out of the drive before Rufus could get up and chase her down or worse, remember her plates. 

***

She would go home, but she didn’t have plasters and first aid in her flat, so instead, Rachel found herself in the parking lot at Oldham, trying to gather the strength to get up and go inside. Luckily, it was now late enough that everyone would have gone home, except, of course, probably Gill, who never went home before nine p.m. on any given day, case or not.

Gill would be easy enough to avoid.

At least, that’s what she thought; it was her luck that she would almost run Godzilla over the second she got into the station, her bag and coat in hand. Was she leaving early? 

“Rachel,” Gill said, not looking up from her phone. “Where have you – what the bloody hell happened to you?” 

She wanted to lie, she wanted to brush her off, go to the loo, and clean her own face, but something about the way Gill was looking at her, with shock and concern, was enough to stop her. 

“I did something stupid,” she said, and the shakiness in her voice surprised her. “I did something so, so stupid.” 

“Okay,” Gill said softly, and the fact that she was being so still, so quiet, her eyes searching Rachel’s face was even more concerning. Shouldn’t she be bollocking her by now, questioning her in that intense, effective way she always does? “Come with me.” 

Gently, far gentler than Rachel thought Gill was able, she took her hand and guided her to the seat beside a first aid kit attached to the wall, pushing Rachel into it. She unsnapped the first aid box from the wall and opened it, rummaging inside.

“Tell me what happened,” she said firmly, tearing open an alcohol swab and using her cold fingers to pull Rachel’s chin up. 

Rachel winced past the pain that flared to life when she tilted her head up, her eyes finding Gill’s in the dim light of the room. She hadn’t turned the lights back on – all they could see by was the streetlight outside filtering through from the parking lot. Gill’s brow was furrowed, focusing on her work, and for a moment, Rachel wondered if she needed her glasses to see better. 

“My mum is getting married,” Rachel said quietly, and a tear slipped down her cheek with no resistance. Gill’s fingertips on her chin were soft, and for a moment they left her chin to wipe the tear away. 

“Okay,” she replied, a gentle encouragement. It pressed on Rachel’s chest, warm and foreign. 

“And he’s horrible,” she said, a sob just barely escaping, almost swallowed back. “He’s been arrested for assault, for domestic violence. He’s – he’s just like me dad.” She pulled away from Gill for a moment to look up at the ceiling, trying to rein her tears in, now flowing down her face freely. “Well, just like they said me dad was. So I went by his place, and I beat the shit out of him.” 

“You –” Gill paused, waiting patiently for Rachel to place her jaw back in her waiting hands, her eyes searching Rachel’s face, lingering on whatever Rufus had left behind on her face, which must be swollen and bruised by now. “It’s not often I’m speechless, Rachel.” 

“I know, I fucked up,” she said, and when the sob escaped her this time, her shoulders shook with the force of it. She left her eyes on Gill’s, trying to read her future in them. Was she angry? Disappointed? Horrified? 

Gill’s eyes dropped down to her lap and she dropped the alcohol swab into the trashcan, pulling out a piece of gauze. “You did,” she admitted quietly. “You committed a crime.” 

Rachel sighed, the sound shaky and quiet. 

“Did anyone see you?” 

Rachel paused, her eyes searching Gill’s face; Gill, to her credit, remained impassive, pressing the gauze into a stinging section of Rachel’s chin, using it as a tissue to mop up what Rachel could feel was a steady stream of blood. 

“No, Boss.” 

“Good,” she murmured, pausing in her ministrations to lean back and observe her work. “You let him get a hit in,” she added. “You silly twat.” 

Rachel stuttered out a laugh, and Gill pulled away to let her finish. “You – you’re not mad?” 

“That you beat up a serial woman beater?” Gill asked. “Bloody stupid question, Rachel.” 

“I –” Rachel paused, and then reached up to stop Gill from patting against her face. She took her hand in her own, and pulled it down to her lap. “I thought you’d be angry. Furious. I committed a crime.” 

“You did,” Gill said simply. “But usually I give you a bollocking because you bring your personal life into the job. This time you came back here where no one else could see you, and you didn’t tell anyone until I asked. This isn’t one of your usual muck ups, Sherlock.” She paused, looking down at their joined hands and then back up. “And you were protecting your mum.” 

“I didn’t want to protect her,” Rachel protested. “She’s a drunk, she’s a horrible, selfish –”

“But she’s still your mum,” Gill pointed out. 

“She hates me,” Rachel whispered, her shoulders slumping her even closer to Gill. “She came by today to try to get me to help him get off for possession. I tried to – I told her that I wasn’t going to do that. I’m a fuck up – the biggest fuck up, but –”

“I don’t think you’re being very fair to yourself,” Gill said firmly. “You have been a fuck up before, by your own admission, sure, but that doesn’t mean you will always be a fuck up, that you always have been a fuck up.” 

“But I am –”

“You haven’t been,” Gill argued, “not since that whole shit show with Kevin. And that was months ago. You have to see yourself as capable of growth, Rachel, or else you won’t do it.” 

Rachel fell silent, her dark eyes stuck on Gill, falling over the lines of her face, down to her neck, back up to her eyes. She had nothing to say – this wasn’t a line of conversation she was used to being a part of. 

“What did you tell her?” Gill asked. “Your mum.” 

“That I wasn’t going to help him, that it wasn’t my job.” 

“Good,” Gill said softly. “Go on.” 

“I gave her money, told her to go away,” Rachel pulled her hand out of Gill’s to press both of the heels of her hands into the recesses of her eyes. “I didn’t want her…shit derailing my life anymore.” 

“So she yelled at you,” Gill prompted. “As any mum would.” 

“Told me I was just like her, that I was going to be just like her, that she deserved more than a few measly quid,” Rachel said, her head still bowed. 

Gill’s hand landed on her shoulder and gently pressed, just enough pressure that Rachel couldn’t think of anything but her small, sharp hand, sweet but firm, trying to find the spot of her frustration and work it out, as if it could be consolidated into a single knot on her back. 

“You fishin’ for compliments, lady?” she asked quietly, and Rachel laughed through her tears, and when she looked up, Gill was looking at her with something that looked like fondness. “You’re not like her. If you were, you wouldn’t be so concerned with how similar you could be.”

“We’re both drunks,” Rachel pointed out. 

“Drinking after work does not an alcoholic make, Sherlock, you know that,” Gill said firmly. She leaned back in her seat, far enough that Rachel could finally see her entire face, in all its shadowed glory, the cheekbones and long lashes, her lipstick barely fading. “You seem like you’re all good now. Just…try to avoid the general public for the next few days while it heals.” 

“Is it bad?” Rachel asked, grateful to be off the topic of her mother and onto something else. 

“You haven’t looked?” Gill asked, surprised. “I figured you to be far more vain than that.” 

Rachel shrugged, trying for nonchalant, but it pulled something in her bruised rib and she hissed in pain instead. Gill, momentarily struck silent, let her eyes travel down to Rachel’s abdomen. 

“Rachel,” she said slowly. “Did you let this bugger get in more than one hit?” 

Rachel exhaled a shaky laugh, knowing the response she was about to get. “He might have slammed me into the fireplace or something, I dunno.” 

“Rachel Bailey, you stupid cow,” she breathed, her brow furrowed even deeper than before. “Stand up.”

“Stand up?” Rachel asked. 

“You heard me, DC Bailey, stand up,” Gill’s command voice was slightly deeper than her normal one, and Rachel was momentarily struck silent by the detail sticking out to her now. 

“Yes, Boss,” she murmured, pulling herself to an uneasy standing position. Gill, without any pretense, took her by the waist and adjusted her stance. Rachel felt her ears go warm and felt momentarily thankful for the darkness in the office. 

“Take off your jacket,” she commanded, and Rachel gulped, the sound loud and embarrassing in the quiet. “Don’t get shy on me now, Sherlock.” 

Rachel wanted to say something, wanted to be flippant; anything else, especially silence, would surely give away the pinpricks of anxiety she felt at Gill’s closeness, at her demands. She found nothing to say, and settled for slipping the jacket off of her shoulders. 

Gill didn’t comment on her silence, but immediately pulled Rachel’s thin shirt up to the top of her ribs, revealing the dark bruise spreading across her ribcage. “Jesus, Rachel,” she said, the words barely a whisper. “You need to go to hospital.” 

“I don’t,” Rachel said, pulling back, and Gill’s hands fell back to her lap. “It’s just a bruise.” 

“And if you cracked a rib?” Gill asked. 

“It’ll heal.” 

Gill stood, reaching for Rachel’s jacket behind her. “You need to go to A&E. Come on, I’ll drive you.” 

“They’re going to ask what happened,” Rachel said. 

“Tell them it was a bar fight,” Gill replied, grabbing her purse from where it had been abandoned long ago. Rachel watched her put the purse on her shoulder, suddenly seeing her boss clearly, beyond the confines of her job. It was concerning, seeing her in the half-dark, where her hands were soft and her demands were still followed. It was distracting. 

“Let’s go, Sherlock.” 

***

“I’m just saying, it was a smart precaution to take,” Gill said, pulling up to Rachel’s flat. “You could have broken a rib, punctured something important.” 

“I think I’d know if I had internal bleeding,” Rachel said with a weak laugh. It still hurt to laugh, hurt to breathe, hurt to do anything with her torso.

“You didn’t even know you were gushing blood out your face, lady, so maybe you don’t know anything,” Gill replied, putting the car in park and surveying Rachel’s face with an intimidating amount of scrutiny. “How do you feel?” 

“Sore,” she replied honestly.

“Good,” Gill said with a raised eyebrow. “Maybe you’ll think twice before attacking a man in his house next time the opportunity comes knocking.” 

“Maybe I will,” Rachel said, dropping her hand to Gill’s arm. “Thank you for…”

“Not reporting you? Not bollocking you? Not reading you the riot act like I’ve done a million times before?” Gill supplied helpfully. 

“All of the above,” Rachel answered, squeezing her arm before releasing it. “And for…everything else.” 

“Okay, don’t go getting sappy,” Gill waved her off with a smile. “Can’t have you falling in love with me.” 

Too late, Rachel thought, letting the car door close behind her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel and Gill have a crisis and ask for help.

Rachel Bailey was bad at compartmentalizing. She knew, as a police officer, that compartmentalizing was important; sometimes you just needed to put the dark things that you saw on the job in a little box and put it somewhere else so you wouldn’t be a pillock at dinner. She understood the need – she just hadn’t gotten good at it yet. Instead, she would carry the anger, the grief, and the ugliness with her at all times, and sometimes, red wine would force it into a box for the evening until it all wrestled itself free the next morning, when she was trying not to vomit during briefings. 

She had been, however, marginally more successful at putting her feelings for Gill in a box and burying it deep down inside. They never came out, except for the occasional moment that most people (she hoped) chalked down to hero worship, or a respectful mentor-mentee relationship. But now here she was, sitting on the edge of her couch, an ice pack on her ribs, trying valiantly not to remember Gill’s gentle fingers on her face, on her stomach, her uncharacteristic concern for her well-being, the shadows playing over her face in the dark syndicate. 

Rachel groaned, covering her face with her hands. She was so painfully bad at hiding her feelings. She needed to get a handle on this before she said or did something stupid. 

With unsteady fingers, she reached for her phone, now mercifully charging on the arm of the settee, and pulled up a text message to Janet. 

“How did you keep your fling with Andy a secret?” she typed out before quickly deleting. Janet hadn’t really kept her fling with Andy a secret, not from Rachel. No one else knew because they didn’t know to look, but everyone was always watching Rachel for her newest fuck up. She would not have the grace to fly under the radar like Janet. 

And, that also implied that she had the chance to have a fling with Gill, and that just wasn’t accurate. 

She tried again: “How do you keep your personal life out of the job?” She stared at the message, her finger hovering over the send button, trying to read it through Janet’s eyes. Was there anything in the message that was particularly revealing? She couldn’t see anything. 

She pressed send, and stared at the screen, waiting. After a moment, a message popped up. 

“Oh God Rach, what did you do?” 

Rachel chuckled, the laughter sending pain through her ribcage, and started typing. “Can’t a woman ask for research purposes?” 

The response was immediate. “A woman, yes. But not you.” 

Less than a minute later, her phone was ringing. “Janet,” she answered, faux-offended. “Why can’t I do research?” 

“You only do research when you really need to,” Janet said knowingly, the sound of the telly in the background. “So…why do you need to?” 

Rachel paused, trying to find the words that wouldn’t give her away. Maybe messaging Janet was a mistake – she was too good a detective. 

“Rach?” Janet’s voice was starting to lose its humorous edge. “You’re making me nervous.” 

Fuck it, Rachel thought. “Can you come over?” she asked. 

“I’ll bring the wine.” 

***

Gill was expecting the knock on the door, but when it happened, she was so deep in her own thoughts that she jumped anyway. She didn’t usually call Julie on a work night, especially because Julie had no self-control and would gladly stay up all night and then work all through the next day, but this was an emergency. 

“Can’t have you falling in love with me,” she thought back over her words as Rachel was climbing out of the car. What a bloody stupid thing to say. How transparent could she be? The only positive side was that Rachel was already halfway into the driveway at that point; perhaps she hadn’t heard her.

She answered the door, and Julie was standing on her doorstep, in a pair of plaid sleeping pants and a casual shirt. Gill stepped aside and let her in, closing the door behind her. 

“What’s going on, Slap?” Julie asked. “You look awful.” 

“Thanks a lot, you mad cow,” Gill shot back, letting a familiar smile take over her face. 

“But really, what’s wrong? You don’t usually call on a weeknight.”

“Rachel Bailey is what’s wrong,” Gill said flatly, leading Julie into the living room. Julie followed, obediently, and settled into the settee. 

Julie was studiously trying to rearrange her face into something that didn’t look smug or amused, but she was, according to Gill, largely unsuccessful. “Is she a good problem or a bad problem?” she asked coyly. 

“Please don’t take the piss today,” Gill groaned, covering her face. “I called you for help.” Julie fell silent beside her, and after a few moments, Gill peeked through her fingers to survey her face. 

“I thought you had your…thing for Rachel Bailey under control,” Julie pointed out shrewdly. “Swept under the rug were the words you used.” 

“Well it has snuck out from under the rug,” Gill replied. “With a vengeance.” 

Julie leaned onto her elbow. “And how exactly did that happen?” 

Gill pursed her lips. “Try not to sound so disapproving –”

Julie shrugged. “I’m not disapproving of your taste in women, as such, though it is a little bit of an odd one, I think –”

“Okay –”

“I’m just wondering what exactly happened that this…crush snuck out from under the rug,” Julie explained. “What did you do?” 

Gill fiddled with the hem of her settee cushion, trying to figure out how much to tell Julie and how much to keep to herself. What Rachel did was a crime, technically, and while Gill wouldn’t be reporting her, Julie might, especially if she got particularly protective of Gill’s professional reputation. 

“She got into a fight,” she began carefully, “and came back to the syndicate to clean up –”

“A fight?” Julie asked, leaning forward. “How? With whom?” 

Gill hesitated. “Something with her mum’s new fiancé. I didn’t want the details,” she lied. Julie surveyed her carefully, no doubt recognizing instantly that Gill was holding something back. “Either way, she was bleeding all over the place, very upset.” 

“And you comforted her,” Julie finished. 

“I helped her clean up,” Gill clarified. “Offered a few words of comfort, nothing out of line.” 

Julie nodded, and for a moment, Gill thought she understood. There was definitely empathy lingering in the lines of her face. “And that’s all it took?” she asked incredulously, when the silence stretched too long. “I thought you were just infatuated with her looks, because,” she paused, and Gill shifted uncomfortably on the settee, “because I get it, but it’s so much worse than that, isn’t it?” 

Suddenly she regretted calling Julie at all. “I didn’t say that.” 

“You don’t have to say it, Slap, the fact that you called me at all was more telling than anything your mouth says,” Julie said knowingly, standing up and straightening her pants. “I’m going to get us some gin from your drinks trolley,” she said to Gill’s questioning glance. “And then you’re going to tell me all about it.” 

***

“You have a crush on Gill,” Janet breathed, the words fogging the wine glass in front of her mouth. Rachel took a long pull on her own glass, trying not to fidget. “I have to say, Rach, it’s not terribly surprising.” 

Relief washed over her, along with a very faint feeling of embarrassment. “It’s not?” she asked. 

Janet shrugged, leaning forward to pour them both more wine. The bottle was half empty at this point. “I mean, you always cared way too much about what she thought of you, I figured it was just an admiration thing. But you also just…look at her a lot.” 

Rachel closed her eyes, the embarrassment coming in stronger waves now. “Am I that obvious?” 

“To me,” Janet said carefully, “but I don’t think you’re obvious to anyone else. Most of the other DCs would never suspect you of liking women. Your male conquests are too public.” 

“Thank you?” Rachel asked. 

Janet leaned back into the settee. “Are you going to tell me what happened to your face?” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Rachel hedged, shifting into the cushions. 

Janet grinned. “Yes, what matters is that those injuries made Gill touch you,” she whispered dramatically. “That’s what’s most important.” 

“Janet Scott, do not make fun of me!” Rachel squealed, taking another drink of her wine. “I’ve been through so much today.” 

“What are you going to do about it?” Janet asked. 

“Go to sleep, probably finish this bottle of wine,” Rachel reasoned, holding up the bottle. 

“I meant about your crush on Gill,” Janet pressed, ever the detective. 

Rachel bit her lip. “Um, I’m going to do what I’ve been doing for years. Keep my mouth shut and try not to embarrass myself. It’s the only thing I can do.” 

“And what if Gill felt the same way?” Janet asked. “What would you do then?” 

“This isn’t an interview,” Rachel protested. “And she doesn’t, she wouldn’t, so it’s not even a question.” 

Janet made a disapproving sound under her breath, and Rachel pretended she didn’t hear it. She was right, she insisted. Gill would never feel the same way. Making a plan for an impossibility would only hurt her feelings later. 

“She is retiring soon,” Janet pointed out. 

Rachel shrugged. “So?”

“So,” Janet repeated, drawing out the word, “if you wanted to ask her out for a drink, it wouldn’t be unprofessional if she wasn’t your SIO anymore –”

“I’m not going to ask her out for a drink,” Rachel interrupted. “That would be…humiliating.” 

***

“You’re not going to be her boss for much longer,” Julie said, pouring another splash of gin into her glass. 

“Don’t go there,” Gill warned, clutching her own glass tightly. “It’s not happening.” 

Julie raised her eyebrows. “So you’re willing to torture yourself forever over this girl and all of the ‘what ifs’ but you’re not willing to put yourself out there and ask her out?” 

“She wouldn’t do it.” 

“She would,” Julie said firmly. “She absolutely would.” 

Gill sighed, looking down at her glass. “Why would she? It doesn’t make sense. She doesn’t even like women!” 

“She’d make an exception for you,” Julie said confidently. “Unless she does like women, and you just don’t know because you’ve never asked.” 

“It’s not my business,” Gill said. 

“It would be if you were trying to ask her out,” Julie replied. “Come on, Slap. She’s obsessed with you, she always has been.” 

“Yeah, that’s called mommy issues,” Gill argued. “That doesn’t mean she’s actually into me like that.” 

“God you are thick sometimes,” Julie muttered. “You like this girl so much, you called me away from my wife in the dead of night to come over and drink. You like her so much that a few moments in the dark, and you’re spiraling. You owe it to yourself to ask her out. Even if she says no.” 

“I will not humiliate myself,” Gill said. 

“Then you’ll pine over her forever,” Julie shrugged. “It’s up to you.” 

***

Gill sat in her office early the next morning, convinced she had shaken Julie’s talk from her mind. She was good at making sure her personal life stayed personal – she had years of experience. It was easy to pretend, in the light of day, that her entire ordeal with Rachel hadn’t happened at all, even though she had found a plaster wrapper on the floor near the first aid kit from the night before, physical evidence that she had immediately disposed of. 

And then she got the phone call that sent her to the moors, and Rachel was standing beside her, in a matching blue kit, her hair blowing over her pale face, the mark on her lip darker now that it had time to bruise. 

“What’s the first impression?” she asked, and Rachel looked down at her, her gaze soft and a little lost and so very tempting. She blinked and looked away, down to the team, who were hovering around the body, pressed between two boulders. 

“Um,” Rachel hesitated. “How did he get here? Or was he killed somewhere else?” 

“And?” 

“How would he have gotten here? Did he walk, drive, or what he brought here?” she continued, and Gill chanced a glance up at her again. Her gaze was on the team, eyes narrowed and focused, the set of her jaw firm and capable. With a rush, Gill wished she could reach out and tuck her hair behind her ear, brush her thumb over the cut on her lip. 

And then Rachel turned to her, eyes silently asking for approval, and unbidden, Julie’s voice came to her mind. She’s obsessed with you. She always has been. 

“How’s your lip?” she asked, her voice softer, different than before. Rachel’s eyes dropped down to her mouth (the better to hear her, Gill reasoned), and then she pressed her fingers to her own lip, as if checking to see if it was still bruised. 

“It’s fine,” she said dismissively, and Gill could see she was still embarrassed, or worried about how it happened. 

“And your ribs?” 

“They’re sore, but I’ll survive,” Rachel said. “Thank you for not leaving me on desk duty.” 

“You’re the sergeant,” Gill reasoned, and Rachel nodded, and her face was lighter, a little less troubled, when Gill mentioned sergeant. 

Again, Julie’s voice came to her: you’re not going to be her boss for much longer. 

Gill surveyed Rachel’s profile, and threw caution to the wind. “I gave my thirty days,” she said. Immediately, Rachel’s eyes were on hers. “I’m officially retiring. That’s thanks to you.” 

“Me?” Rachel asked, and panic had completely taken over her face. “No I didn’t.” 

“Relax, Sherlock, it’s not a bad thing,” Gill said. 

Rachel’s eyes went to the ground, full of something sad and unreadable. “I just –” she stopped, and Gill waited with bated breath to hear what she had to say. 

“What, Rachel?” she asked. 

Rachel exhaled, her hand rising to push her hair out of her face. “I just…I don’t know what I’m going to do when you’re not here.” 

“Oh,” Gill said softly, Rachel’s gaze now completely on hers, the team below them forgotten. “Oh, well, you’ll be fine without me.” 

Rachel’s eyes told her she clearly didn’t believe it, but Gill really did. And maybe, if Gill wasn’t her boss anymore, they could be more open with each other. Maybe when she wasn’t her SIO, Gill could finally ask her what that look meant, what those sad eyes meant. 

She wished the thirty days were up already.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We touch a bit on Rachel and Gill's trauma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter definitely has a trigger warning for panic attacks, PTSD, anxiety, and death! If any of those things are particularly triggering for you, please skip this chapter! I hope all of you are safe, wherever you are. Stay healthy, I love you!

Gill prided herself on being perceptive; that’s what made her so good at her job. She understood people, she saw through them to the meat underneath. She was skilled at figuring out what made people tick – she had been a fantastic interviewer, before she’d been promoted. Being perceptive allowed her to be good at making decisions. That is, until Helen Bartlett pressed a knife to the tender skin of her neck. 

It had been months since Helen Bartlett died, and still Gill saw her in her nightmares. She was always standing in front of her, wrists bleeding, the sound of the blood hitting the saturated carpet echoing in Gill’s ears louder than realistically possible. She hardly ever spoke – she didn’t need to. Gill would immediately wake, drenched in sweat, her throat sore like she had been yelling. 

She never knew if she was yelling – Sammy was off at university with Orla, so she had the entire house to herself. She’d allowed herself a bit of distraction with a younger man who proved up to the task of keeping her occupied long enough to stave off nightmares, but her interest in him was short-lived, as usual. So now she was alone again, staring at the ceiling, feeling the cold sweat dry on her skin while she tried to decide if she wanted to go back to sleep or not.

She rolled over and grabbed her phone, the greenish light of the screen forcing her eyes to adjust to the dark, and stared at it. She had twelve text messages – updates from various squad members about several cases, all destined to wait until the next morning, during work hours. If it was urgent, they would have called.

A message from Rachel catches her eye. “Fire reported on farm close by in the early hours. Will get report from department in the morning. -R.” 

Something about this case unsettles her; Gill can feel in her bones that something insidious is going on, and even though she’s about to retire, she can’t help but feel like something is going to get in the way, going to keep her here, lingering, unhappy yet unable to do anything about it. 

“Make sure to risk assess that farm before you send anyone on it,” she types. Better to get the thought out of the way before she slips off to sleep again and forgets by morning. “Don’t want anyone with a shotgun surprising us.” 

She hits send and sits up in bed, determined to wait for a response. At least doing so would keep her from Helen Bartlett and her beyond-the-grave haunting for a little while longer. The police therapist she had been assigned to see had given her coping mechanisms, little things she could do to keep the PTSD under control. 

But Gill didn’t really think she had PTSD; she wasn’t having flashbacks in the middle of the supermarket or anything – she was just struggling to make decisions where she usually didn’t have any trouble, and that was annoying, but it wasn’t clinical. 

And then the light on her phone went out, and she was plunged into darkness again, shadows pressing in on her from all sides, the sounds out on the street suddenly louder than usual. What if someone was climbing into the backseat of her car right now, in the dead of night, to wait patiently until tomorrow morning? 

In the palpable darkness, Gill heard the door to her bedroom creak open wider. She went rigid against the headboard, her ears straining to hear anything that could give her a clue. Was the intruder in her room? In her house? Was she slowly creeping toward the bed, silently amused at how tense Gill was, waiting for just the right moment to drive a large knife through her neck and out the other side? 

Suddenly, Gill could hear her own breathing, loud and shallow, so loud the creaking door was no longer a threat. The intake of every breath brought the walls in closer, and soon, she was digging her nails into her palms so sharply she could feel the skin tearing. 

This was a panic attack, she told herself. She knew that – this wasn’t her first. But all of the bits of advice her therapist had given her were gone, lost in the sound of her breathing, and she was powerless to do anything but keep breathing, her vision, still desperately trying to see in the darkness, starting to go spotty.

A light erupted to her left, filling the space with beams of yellow tinged with green, and Gill was able to see that the room was empty, the door still ajar, and her vision momentarily cleared. She exhaled, shakily, tears slipping down her cheeks. She swiped them away, irritated; she didn’t need to cry, there was nothing to cry about. 

But there was, wasn’t there? Her therapist had urged her to understand that trauma wasn’t something she could will away, it wasn’t something that she could use her considerable amount of determination on. Trauma needed time to dissolve. She pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes and allowed herself ten seconds to sob, ugly, loud, animal sounds tearing themselves from her throat, and when her ten seconds were up, she wiped her eyes and opened them into a darkened room. Her phone light had gone out again. 

She reached for it, desperate for something to distract herself. She opened a message from Rachel. 

“Put in the order before I left this evening, Boss,” the text read. Gill smiled for a moment until she saw the time. 3:12 a.m. There was only one reason that Rachel would be up this late if she wasn’t working.

She wondered grimly who the new toy boy was.

But that wasn’t important, she scolded herself, releasing her phone and dropping it face down on the bed. She forced herself out of bed and into the loo to wash her face. She stared at herself in the mirror – eyes bloodshot, lips set in a stern line, wrinkles everywhere she didn’t want them. She locked eyes with herself and inhaled, held her breath, and released the breath, counting out the seconds, like her therapist taught her. 

***

Rachel stared at her phone, wondering if Gill was going to respond. It was odd that she was responding to her message this late in the evening, but now that she was…but the phone stayed stubbornly dark, and she was forced to have to re-engage in a conversation with Will she really didn’t want to have.

“Rachel?” he asked, his voice just losing the charming edge it normally had. “Is there a call you need to make?” 

He meant because she was staring at her phone. Rachel shook her head. “No, I just thought there was a work thing happening, but I guess not.” 

“Trying to avoid the rest of this conversation?” Will asked shrewdly.

Rachel scoffed. “I don’t need to avoid this conversation, Will, because it’s a finished conversation. I don’t want to be public about our relationship, and that’s the end of it.” 

“I don’t see why not,” Will argued, and Rachel had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. This was exactly what they had already discussed. “It keeps us from looking deceitful.” 

“And it looks like I’m shagging my way to the top,” Rachel replied sharply, taking a long pull from her glass of red wine. “I don’t want those rumors to follow me for years. They’ll be a bad thing for me, they won’t be for you.” 

Will reached over and slipped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to press a kiss to the top of her head. “You know you didn’t shag your way to the top, and that should be enough, shouldn’t it?” 

“It isn’t,” Rachel said firmly. “And you know it’s not. Those rumors will affect if and when I get promoted again, how I get chosen for assignments.” 

“It won’t –”

“Just because it didn’t happen to you doesn’t mean it won’t happen to me,” Rachel argued. “It’s different for men and women –”

“That’s just a myth –”

“Really?” Rachel asked. “So when Gill and Dave split up, it was Dave who suffered professionally, even though he was the one at it with all and sundry? It wasn’t Gill who people whispered about, who people compared to a shrew? It was all Dave?” 

Will pulled his arm back from her shoulders and shifted uncomfortably beside her. “That’s one example –”

“It’s the rule, Will,” Rachel exclaimed. “I’m just at the beginning of my career as a sergeant, and I’m trying to advance beyond that. I’m sorry, but I’m not telling people about us.” 

“Then you’re just not serious about us,” Will said. “Because if you saw a future for us, you’d realize that eventually we have to tell people.” 

Rachel stared at him in the dark. It would be easy, she thought, to say she was serious about their relationship. They had a good enough time together. But wasn’t that what she thought about Sean? And Nick? They got along well enough, so why shouldn’t they continue until things went poorly? But there was something that didn’t sit right; with Nick, it was the secrets; with Sean, it was the pressure to get married; with Will, it was this. 

“You’re right,” she sighed. “I guess I’m just not serious.” 

***

The next day brought exactly as Gill feared – though Rachel had professed to risk assessing the farm, still the man had pulled a shotgun, and the man was now dead. The details of the events leading up to his death were still murky to her, and even though she couldn’t blame Rachel for what happened, she felt unwarranted and uncontrollable anger toward her anyway. 

With a barely controlled shudder, she took a quick sip of the flask of gin she’d hidden away in her desk before grabbing her phone, bag, and keys and getting into her car. She dialed Rachel before she had even pulled out of the parking lot, and it wasn’t until the phone started ringing that she realized no one had checked the car for intruders. 

Startled and shaken, she put the car in park and turned sharply to look into the back seat, her eyes searching frantically for what wasn’t there. 

She was still breathing heavily when Rachel picked up. 

“Boss –”

“I told you to risk assess the farm,” Gill snapped immediately. “Why didn’t you risk assess the farm?” 

“The assessment didn’t come back in time, we had reason to believe the husband and wife suspicious,” Rachel explained, and there was something in her tone that gave Gill pause, but her anger had taken control, and the gin had given her the decisive edge she had been lacking. 

“You were meant to follow procedure,” she shot back, her voice harsh enough that she heard Rachel’s intake of breath on the other end of the line. “You are meant to be the sergeant. You put Janet in danger. You’re the reason she is going to be investigated for this. If you had bloody listened to me, this never would have happened!” 

She yanked the phone off the stand and threw it down beside her, her frayed nerves and anger too in control to do much else. She made sure she had hung up, and drove on, trying to ignore the shaking in her hands. 

***

Rachel stared at the phone, her mouth still partly open. She had expected a stern talking-to by Godzilla at some point, but she was looking at the finished risk assessment in her hands, and there was no evidence that suggested the farm had a shotgun, as they had no firearm license. Janet would have gone onto the farm with the exact amount of information she’d had. In all likelihood, the outcome would have been the same. 

That was a small comfort at this point. 

“Did you tell her?” Pete asked. “About your mum?” 

Rachel clenched her jaw and reached for her pack of fags. “No,” she said shortly. 

In yet another moment of cosmic cruelty, she received the call less than half an hour before that her mother had died in a supermarket just that morning. She wanted no one to know, beyond who had to know, but Pete had been with her when she heard, and now he was logically badgering her to tell Gill, and take the day off. 

If only Pete knew how little she professed to care for her mother, if only Pete knew how little her mother cared for her. 

Still, death was often a creature Rachel was casually acquainted with, and this felt like death had kicked down her door and taken a seat at her table. She didn’t feel sad – not yet, but she felt disoriented, like she had water in her ears. 

She moved through the rest of the afternoon in a fog, making decisions that her instincts told her were the most correct, and was rewarded with absolutely nothing. Her worry for Janet had overtaken almost everything else, but even that did not penetrate the mental fog the shock of her mother’s death had bestowed upon her.

She returned to the syndicate bogged down, bone tired, and knowing that a face-to-face Gill was imminent. She had barely put down her coat before Gill’s eyes caught hers over the rim of her glasses and she sighed, tightening her shoulders against what the assault was sure to be. 

“I shouldn’t have put the phone down on you like that,” Gill said when Rachel came in and shut the door. “It was completely unprofessional.”

The fog momentarily lifted, and in the wake of clarity, Rachel suddenly wished for the fog back; she had prepared for Gill to yell at her. Hearing her apologize was overwhelming and she feared the day was about to catch up with her at the most inopportune moment. 

“I should have waited for the risk assessment to come in,” she said finally. “I should have followed procedure.” 

“I saw the risk assessment,” Gill said, and she glanced down at the open file on her desk. Rachel’s eyes followed it, and instead of seeing the document, she caught sight of a glass, almost empty, lingering half-hidden behind Gill’s computer screen. It was clear to her that it once held alcohol. 

“There was no way you could have known he would have a gun,” Gill continued, oblivious of Rachel’s discovery.

Rachel swallowed, trying to breathe past the lump in her throat. She refused to cry right now, in front of her boss, in the middle of the work day. She couldn’t take her eyes off the glass. Gill had finished speaking and was probably waiting for Rachel to say something. 

“Rachel?” 

She didn’t answer, but took her leave, careful to measure the pace of her steps until she was out of sight of everyone and well on her way to the loo. Once inside, she leaned against the closed door and covered her mouth with her hand, suppressing the sound of her sobs. 

What was she crying for, at the end of the day? She hadn’t mourned her mother much when she left the first time, and in coming back into her life, Sharon Bailey brought nothing but trouble. Still she sobbed, hard enough that she had to remove her hand from her mouth and brace herself against the wall. 

It was getting harder to breathe – Rachel staggered into the bathroom more completely, leaning against the counter, pulling paper towels out of the dispenser to wipe her tears away. Somewhere, Janet was probably equally upset, and with far more cause – she felt foolish crying in the bathroom like a high schooler, but once she started, she couldn’t stop. She was breathing so hard she could feel the beginning of sweat at the base of her neck. Quickly, frantically, she pulled her long hair away from her neck, clasping her hands on top of her head and trying to breathe steadily. It wasn’t working. 

“Rachel?” Gill knocked only once before forcing her way inside. “Oh, shit.” She rushed to Rachel’s side, her eyes wide and concerned. “Rachel, listen carefully, okay? I need you to breathe deeper.” 

But Rachel could barely hear her; her ears were full of the sound of rushing water, and the more she listened to the water, the harder it was to breathe. It wasn’t until her knees gave out that she realized was on the verge of losing consciousness. 

Gill grasped her by the shoulders and shoved her onto the counter, so she was sitting on it rather than leaning on it, and grabbed Rachel’s face between her hands. 

“Breathe in with me, okay?” she asked, and Rachel nodded. Gill took one of Rachel’s hands and placed it over her ribs. “Breathe in, like this,” she said, inhaling like her therapist taught her. “Now breathe out.” 

She coaxed her through a few more breaths, her thumb steadily wiping away Rachel’s tears as they came, the other hand tender on top of Rachel’s. It was harder to coax someone through their panic attack than it was to work through her own. 

After a few minutes, Rachel’s breathing returned to normal, and she slumped against the mirror, the hair around her forehead damp with sweat, her eyes unfocused. Gill didn’t want to ask, but her concern was threatening to take over; what if Rachel’s panic attack was because of her? What if she was panicking because Gill yelled at her over the phone earlier? 

But no, that couldn’t be – Rachel had been scolded far worse than this. 

“My mum’s dead,” she finally offered, her voice broken and rough. Gill didn’t say anything – she couldn’t think of anything to say. There wasn’t an apology that would land, no condolence that would make sense. Rachel’s complicated relationship with her mother made well wishes that much more impossible.

But death wasn’t complicated, Gill thought, taking in Rachel’s blotchy face, the color still high in her cheeks from the panic attack. Without speaking, she pulled Rachel to her chest, cradling her head gently. 

“When did you find out?” she asked finally. 

Rachel’s voice was muffled. “Right before you called.” 

The statement was like a vice around her heart. Gill released her, stepping back to see her more clearly. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she repeated. “I know that doesn’t mean much right now, but –”

“No, no, don’t apologize,” Rachel waved her off, sniffling. “I should have waited. Maybe, if I waited, he wouldn’t have been there. Maybe Janet wouldn’t have pursued him, maybe she never would have seen him.” 

“They found men on the farm, Rachel,” Gill said in a rush. “Five men, living in the barn. It looks like human trafficking.”

“Oh,” Rachel breathed. 

“You did not follow protocol,” Gill acknowledged, “but there was a positive outcome. You saved those five men. Janet did too.”

“Why are you drinking on the job?”

Gill’s hands came together to wring uncomfortably in front of her waist. “I – I’m not.” 

“I saw the glass,” Rachel said quietly. “I’m not – I’m not accusing you of anything –”

“Did you tell anyone?” Gill asked, her voice suddenly stern. “Who did you tell?” 

“No one,” Rachel exclaimed. “No one. I just saw the glass.” At the stricken look on Gill’s face, she hastened to explain herself. “I won’t tell. But…if someone else finds out –”

“It’s not a –” Gill hesitated, her eyes finding the bathroom door, still mercifully closed. “It’s not an issue, I just…”

“I don’t need the explanation,” Rachel offered when Gill struggled to continue. “I’m not asking for one. I just know that you wouldn’t usually do something like this.” 

Gill pursed her lips together, like she was steeling herself to say something unsavory, but the bathroom door eased open and Julie Dodson leaned into the doorway, looking between Rachel and Gill with an unreadable expression. 

“I need to see you both in your office,” she said matter-of-factly. “We need to discuss this incident.” 

Gill nodded, and Julie eased out of the room, letting the door close silently behind her. Rachel watched her carefully, taking in the way Gill studiously rearranged her expression so no emotions were betrayed in any lines of her face. But Rachel could see the tension in her neck and shoulders, the way the veins stood out on her hands, the faint half-moon indentions on her palms. 

“Can we talk about this later?” Rachel asked, and Gill turned back to her, surprised. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she replied. 

Rachel shrugged. “Well, not talking about it has led you to drink,” Gill exhaled what could almost be a laugh, “so I think I should insist.” 

Gill straightened her shoulders and moved toward the door, leaving the statement unacknowledged.


End file.
